The plucky rovers Spirit and Opportunity and the ice-finding Phoenix Lander have perhaps drawn more attention, but it’s the craft that’s been in steady, silent orbiter that has them all beat for longevity. The Mars Odyssey mission just clicked off its 3,340th day in orbit of Mars yesterday, making it the longest-running human mission to the Red Planet. The Mars Global Surveyor, another orbiter, held the record previously.

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The orbiter’s most famous discovery came a few months into the mission, when Odyssey found evidence for water ice under the Red Planet’s rocky surface. This evidence led to the Phoenix mission, a Mars lander that touched down on the planet’s surface in May 2008, and later confirmed the presence of water there. [MSNBC]

Odyssey, which launched in 2001, has taken a barrage of beautiful Mars photos, as seen in the gallery above. But observation isn’t its only achievement.

Odyssey also has served as a communication relay, handling most of the data sent home by Phoenix and NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Odyssey became the middle link for continuous observation of Martian weather by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. [NASA Press Release]

On the last picture, I’ve never heard of “a shadow created by Martian winds”. Shadows are usually created by something obstructing light. So is it a shadow or is it not a shadow? Do the laws of physics work differently on Mars? i.e. do winds cause shadows, not light.

Digby

Don’t be so literal. It’s an apparent shadow. Do you really need ‘shadow’ to be put into quotes?

Sherry

I was thrown by that too, wind doesn’t cause shadows, I think they worded that slightly wrong.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/ Eliza Strickland

@ Alec Salt and Sherry: sorry for the confusion. I’ve reworded the caption for that image to make it clear that the “shadow” is really an area where the wind has swept away the light-colored dust.